Food on the Edge to return in style

Food on the Edge, the food and gastronomy symposium returns for its eighth edition with a full line-up of guests and speakers announced.

The event will again take place at Airfield Estate in Dublin, having decamped from its native Galway in the West, for two days of interesting talks and debates on 16 and 17 October. As usual, the event has one overarching theme through all talks, this year focusing on ‘storytelling’.

“Food On The Edge has evolved into a place where the global food industry can come together and share thoughts, ideas, stories and have an honest discussion about where the food industry is and where it needs to go, speakers are free from external pressures and expectations,” said the event’s founder, chef and activist JP McMahon.

Several stellar names have been announced to feature on stage, including Elena Reygadas, recent recipient of the World’s Best Female Chef by The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2023.

Inspirational chef Fatmata Binta, winner of the Basque Culinary World Prize for her work with the Fulani Kitchen Foundation that preserves tribal foodways and traditions, while empowering women and girls, will also attend as a headline speaker.

The legendary Andoni Luis Aduriz will bring his outside-the-box approach to gastronomic innovation at Mugaritz to Irish shores while leading lights of Ireland’s restaurant scene Jordan Bailey and Majken Bech-Bailey of Aimsir will fly the domestic flag.

“Storytelling is a social and cultural act whereby people or a nation talk to themselves about themselves. Stories preserve traditions and teach us about past generations," said McMahon. "The Irish people are historically masters when it comes to storytelling. Growing up... We seemed to have stories about everything except food. Of course, this has changed, but we still have a way to go to cement the possibilities of the Irish food story into our cultural nexus. Perhaps we had fewer food stories because we couldn't materialise them in light of the Famine.”